by Gary Chesla
Linda was worried about Mike more than she worried about herself and little Jamie.
Mike had been trying to get home for three days now, but he hadn’t made it yet.
Mike had mentioned that he and Tony had been running from zombies.
She just knew something was wrong.
As she laid awake last night thinking, it occurred to her that Mike didn’t say that he, Tony and Ryan had been chased by zombies.
It could just be nothing, but the more she thought about it, the more she was convinced Mike was in trouble.
If he wasn’t, he would have been home long ago.
The moaning and thumps against the walls went on all last night and had kept her awake.
She had kept staring into the darkness towards the board covered hole over the bedroom closet, half expecting to see the rotting flesh covered skull of one of those things thrusting up into the attic.
But she had finally accepted that she and Jamie were safe in a place where the zombies couldn’t get to.
Unfortunately, they were also in a place where she and Jamie couldn’t get out.
Linda glanced at the end of the attic and saw the small rays of sunlight coming in through the attic vent.
If Mike didn’t get home before dark, she and Jamie would have to find a way out of the attic tomorrow before they starved or baked to death.
She tried to push that out of her mind because if the zombies didn’t leave the house, the only possible way out that she could think of was that attic vent.
Linda doubted she could pull it loose or worse, she knew she couldn’t jump out the vent and land twenty feet below without breaking something.
The sickening smell was still hanging thick in the attic, but she was almost able to ignore it by now.
Almost.
If it wasn’t the sweat running in her face to make her eyes burn, it was that damn smell.
Not only did it burn her eyes, it also burned her nose.
Linda stared at the rafters running down each side of the roof above her.
“I don’t want to die,” Linda thought, “Not like this.”
Her roaming thoughts were distracted and brought back to reality when she heard Jamie’s stomach growl and then Jamie giggled.
“My stomach growled. It sounds loud up here in the attic,” Jamie said. “I’m hungry.”
“I know,” Linda replied softly and reached out and put her arm around Jamie, who was lying next to her sharing the pillow, and brushed her wet hair away from her eyes, “we’re all hungry.”
“George isn’t hungry,” Jamie said.
“Why isn’t George hungry?” Linda asked.
“Cause, he’s been eating bugs,” Jamie replied. “I watched him eat a cricket. Did you know when you eat a cricket, they sound just like potato chips?”
“Oh gross,” Linda said.
“If Daddy saw him eating he would get yelled at,” Jamie said.
“I don’t think Daddy would yell at George,” Linda smiled to herself.
“He yells at me when I play with my food,” Jamie said.
“Was George playing with the cricket?” Linda asked.
“Yeah, he kept swatting the cricket with his paw,” Jamie replied. “When the cricket didn’t want to play anymore, he ate it. Crunch!”
“I guess if George wants to play with me, I better play with him,” Linda smiled.
Jamie giggled, “George can’t eat you, he is too little.”
“He does have sharp teeth,” Linda said.
Jamie was quiet for a few minutes, then she asked, “When is Daddy coming home? I’m tired playing in the attic.”
“Me too,” Linda said. “I bet he will come home today. You want to bet me?”
“I bet you two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that Daddy will be home today,” Jamie smiled.
“We can’t both bet that Daddy will be home today,” Linda said.
“Why not,” Jamie asked.
Linda grinned, “OK, you’re right. If Daddy comes home today, I owe you two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”
“Good,” Jamie smiled. “George wants to bet too.”
“OK, I bet George two crickets,” Linda added.
“George wants three crickets,” Jamie grinned.
“Sounds like George is getting greedy,” Linda replied.
“No, George is just a big better,” Jamie said.
Linda ran her hand through Jamie’s hair again.
“Tell George he is on,” Linda said and thought, “I’d give anything for Mike to come home right now, I’d even go out and hunt for crickets.”
Linda was just about to tell Jamie that George was too little to be a big better, but stopped and listened when she thought she heard a noise coming from the roof above her.
“Listen,” Linda said looking at Jamie.
Then she heard the sound again.
Thump, thump, thump.
Linda looked at the rafters and followed the sounds as they crossed the roof above her.
“How the hell did those things get up on the roof?” Linda thought. “They can barely get up the steps.”
“Who is on the roof?” Jamie asked.
“I don’t know,” Linda replied. “But we need to stay quiet in case it is one of the bad people. OK?”
“OK,” Jamie replied and started to get up.
“Where you going?” Linda whispered and pulled Jamie back down to the pillow.
“I have to go tell George,” Jamie replied.
“Stay here,” Linda said. “George is fine.”
Linda listened as the movement on the roof stopped, then she listened curiously as another sound started.
The new sound was a tearing or scraping sound.
Linda couldn’t figure out what was going on up on the roof.
Both she and Jamie jumped when something crashed down on the roof above them.
When it happened a second time and small particles from the roof sprinkled down on top of them, Linda began to panic.
“Shit, they are trying to get through the roof,” her mind screamed in her head.
Linda began to frantically look around the attic, looking for someplace to hide.
The attic was a large forty by forty-foot square, completely open with no place to hide.
Linda tried to remember if Mike had done any other work where he might have cut a hole in the ceiling to get up in the attic, but nothing other than the bedroom ceiling fan came to mind.
Linda’s next thought was to find something to use as a weapon in case those things managed to get through the roof, but the attic was empty, except of course for her and Jamie and bugs.
Linda didn’t know what she would do even if she could find something to use for a weapon.
She guessed she could sit below where the zombies were trying to come in through the roof and bash their heads in as they tried to get into the attic, but as she remembered how the noise coming from her bedroom dragged out all night long nonstop, she knew she would give out long before the zombies did.
Those damn things never seemed to sleep, get tired or bored like she did.
As Linda searched the attic with her eyes, another thought came to mind.
She knew she and Jamie had to get out of the attic.
Going back down through the hole in her closet ceiling wasn’t an option, but as she remembered how the plasterboard had crumbled in her hands as she tried to get up through the hole, it gave her another idea.
“Jamie, come on, follow me,” Linda said as she got into a low crouching position.
“Where we going?” Jamie asked as she stood up.
“We have to get out of the attic before the bad people get through the roof,” Linda said as she looked at the roof as the spot above them began to crack, dropping more small chips of wood down on top of them.
Linda began to crawl over the rafters on the floor towards the back corner of the attic.
“Stay on these big boards and don’t walk on the sof
t plasterboard between them, OK?” Linda said as she glanced back at Jamie.
Linda knew Jamie probably didn’t weigh enough to fall through the ceiling, but she didn’t want to take any chances.
They crawled to the side of the attic and Linda studied the spaces in between the rafters.
When she spotted the top of a light assembly and the electrical wires that ran up into the attic, she stopped and calculated what room was now below her.
As she counted the number of feet from the edge of the attic, she felt certain they were now over the upstairs guest bedroom.
The light assembly in front of her should be located in the center of the room.
The pounding on the roof intensified, the sound echoing in the closed in attic space around them.
The zombies in her bedroom had taken notice and had begun to loudly add to the noise in the attic with their moaning.
“God, I hope the spare room door is closed,” Linda thought.
They had always kept the door to the spare bedroom closed because for some reason, George liked to go in that room. He would often disappear and after a long search, they would find him in the spare room under the bed.
“Maybe a family of crickets lived in the spare room under the bed,” Linda thought.
As Linda glanced back at the roof, more and larger pieces of the boards began to flake off and fall on top of where they had been.
Linda looked at Jamie, “I’m going to kick a hole in the floor. This is above the spare room. Then we are going to drop down into the spare room to get out of the attic.”
Jamie nodded, but Linda could see that Jamie was starting to get scared by what was happening to the roof.
Linda kicked at the soft plasterboard between the rafters and a large piece of the plaster crumbled and fell into the room below.
She quickly dropped on her stomach and pushed her head through the hole and looked into the room below.
It was the spare room and the door was closed.
“I’m going to drop down on the bed,” Linda whispered to Jamie. “After I get down, I want you to hang from the hole and I’ll grab you so you don’t fall. Can you do that?”
Jamie nodded as he leaned over and looked down through the hole.
Linda grabbed on to the rafters and slowly lowered herself down into the spare room.
When she was down as far as she could go without letting go, she took a quick look below her.
The bed was directly below her.
Linda let go and dropped the final few feet and fell on the bed.
“That was certainly a lot easier getting down than I had going up,” Linda thought.
Linda took a quick glance around the room.
She knew if the zombies could get through the house roof, they would also be able to find their way down into the spare room, but this would buy her a little more time.
Hopefully she could find something to disguise the hole in the ceiling to buy even more time.
Then there was the noise right outside the door.
The scraping and sickening thuds against the door, and the moaning was louder here than it had been in the attic.
She began to wonder if this had been a good idea, but she knew she really didn’t have much choice.
The zombies had found her and Jamie and were closing in on them.
She had no choice but to run.
Where would she run, she thought as she glanced at the window, she would have to figure that out later, now she needed to get Jamie down into the room.
Linda looked up through the hole to find Jamie.
“Jamie?” Linda called out in a loud whisper. “Where are you?”
A second later Jamie looked down through the opening.
“I have to go get George,” Jamie said and then she disappeared.
“Jamie!” Linda said again, but Jamie was gone.
“Oh shit, come on Jamie,” Linda said nervously and much louder this time.
Linda stared up through the hole in the ceiling, afraid to call out any louder than she had for fear of the zombies in the hallway, but it was already too late.
Linda jumped when the first loud thump landed against the spare room door, then the next and the next.
Linda began to tremble as the sounds increased and Jamie hadn’t yet returned above her.
She also knew, without a chair or a ladder, neither of which was in the spare room, there was no way she could get back to the attic.
Jamie crossed the attic, hopping from one large board to the next, calling for her kitten, “George! Where are you?”
She spotted George swatting at something near the pillow where she and her mother had been a few minutes ago.
Jamie quickly ran over and picked up George.
“Quit fooling around George, Mommy is waiting for us,” Jamie said.
She was just starting to turn to take George over where her mother was waiting below, when a large piece of the roof crumbled and fell into the attic.
The bright sunshine flooded into the attic through the opening, almost blinding Jamie.
She began to tremble when a dark silhouette pushed down through the hole.
Jamie stood frozen until the object pushing in through the hole blocked out the sunlight so she could see what it was.
A big smile came over her face when she recognized Mike’s head sticking down into the attic.
“Daddy!” Jamie yelled happily, “You’re home.”
Mike smiled, but his smile faded as he glanced around the attic and didn’t see Linda.
“Where is your mother?” Mike asked.
“She went down that hole over there,” Jamie replied.
“Go tell your mother to get back up here while I finish making this hole large enough so I can get you and your mother out of the attic,” Mike said.
“OK,” Jamie said and quickly turned and ran to the other side of the attic as Mike began to frantically dig at the particleboard to make the hole large enough for him to get through.
Jamie ran over to the hole above her mother and looked down into the room.
“Hurry,” Linda said when she saw Jamie’s face above her. “Jump down and I’ll catch you.”
“Mommy,” Jamie said. “Daddy’s here.”
“What?” Linda asked.
“Daddy’s here,” Jamie repeated. “He is making a hole in the roof to get us out. He wants you to come back in the attic so we can go with him.”
Linda was overwhelmed with joy as tears started to run down her cheeks.
She looked around trying to find something she could use to climb back up to the attic.
But the only thing in the room she could use, she was already using, was the bed.
The room had a bed, a TV stand and a built-in dresser that she couldn’t move.
“Go tell Daddy I can’t climb back up, I need him to help me,” Linda said. “Hurry!”
Linda nervously watched the door shaking as all the zombies in the upstairs of the house must have turned their attention to the door of the spare room.
Linda had seen this happen before in her bedroom, and she knew the door wouldn’t keep the zombies out for much longer.
Jamie ran back to where he dad was chipping away at particleboard, trying to make the hole large enough for him to get into the attic.
“Mommy says she can’t get back up.” Jamie said. “She needs you to help her. She said hurry.”
“Go tell Mommy I’ll be there in a minute,” Mike said.
“OK,” Jamie said and turned and ran back to the hole above her mother.
Jamie looked down through the hole, “Daddy says he is coming as soon as he can make the hole bigger.”
Jamie was standing at the edge of the hole as she talked to her mother.
Her eyes got wide as she felt the plasterboard around the hole break away and then she felt herself falling.
Mike pounded at the roof particleboard on the roof, causing another chunk of the particleboard to fall away.
> He stuck his head in through the hole again, just in time to see Jamie fall through the floor and disappear from his sight.
Mike gave one last thrust at the edges of the opening, then began to force himself, head first, through the opening.
He was grateful for the pillow on the floor, as he landed headfirst on the floor.
Mike quickly began to scurry across the attic.
When he got to the opening, he looked down to see three sets of wide eyes looking up at him.
“Thank God you’re home Mike,” Linda cried out. “Get us out of here. They’re crashing into the door and there is a large crack running down the middle. It won’t hold much longer.”
Mike thought for a second, then he jumped down into the room.
“What are you doing?” Linda asked nervously.
“Get on my back, you know how you do in the swimming pool?” Mike said. “I’ll lift you up and you crawl back up to the attic. Then I’ll hand you Jamie and George.”
Linda didn’t say another word and quickly climbed on Mike’s shoulders as he knelt down on the bed.
Mike stood up, pushing Linda’s head and shoulders through the opening in the ceiling.
She grabbed onto the rafters and pulled herself up.
“Take George next,” Jamie said, holding George out for Mike.
He smiled, took the kitten and lifted him up to Linda.
“Your turn, shorty,” Mike grinned as he grabbed Jamie.
Mike barely had Jamie in his hands when the door to the room split in two and crumbled into the room.
Mike lifted Jamie and Linda grabbed her arms and began to pull her up into the attic as the first grisly forms staggered into the room.
Linda pulled Jamie up, sitting her next to her side then gasped when she looked back down in the room to see the zombies surrounding Mike on the bed.
“Mike,” Linda shouted as Mike leaped up and grabbed the rafters and began to pull himself up.